Biosecurity NZ ready for a busy summer
Biosecurity New Zealand says that more officers, detector dogs, and airport hosts, accompanied by an enhanced public awareness campaign, will bolster New Zealand’s biosecurity protections this summer.
Sampling has been completed for the largest and most detailed study of honey bee health ever undertaken in New Zealand.
More than 60 beekeepers have participated in Biosecurity New Zealand’s Bee Pathogen Programme and had their hives tested every six months for two and half years.
Biosecurity New Zealand senior scientist, Dr Richard Hall, says the research will provide a wealth of valuable information to the beekeeping industry.
“The Bee Pathogen Programme will help us better understand the effect that diseases, climate and apiary management practices have on colony losses and productivity,” he says.
“We have completed sampling and our experts have begun carefully evaluating the huge amount of data that has been collected.
“This includes studying more than 130,000 honey bees from 300 samples taken throughout the country that are now archived in Biosecurity New Zealand’s freezers.
“Once the data has been carefully evaluated it will be available to the beekeeping industry and to researchers for further analysis.”
Biosecurity New Zealand is aiming to release its conclusions from the Bee Pathogen Programme in late 2019.
NZPork has appointed Auckland-based Paul Bucknell as its new chair.
The Government claims to have delivered on its election promise to protect productive farmland from emissions trading scheme (ETS) but red meat farmers aren’t happy.
Foot and Mouth Disease outbreaks could have a detrimental impact on any country's rural sector, as seen in the United Kingdom's 2000 outbreak that saw the compulsory slaughter of over six million animals.
The Ministry for the Environment is joining as a national award sponsor in the Ballance Farm Environment Awards (BFEA from next year).
Kiwis are wasting less of their food than they were two years ago, and this has been enough to push New Zealand’s total household food waste bill lower, the 2025 Rabobank KiwiHarvest Food Waste survey has found.
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